Monday, November 16, 2015

Don't Expect 2016 Candidates to Restore Real Liberty

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I have a new article on the news and commentary website, “Don’t Expect 2016 Candidates to Restore Real Liberty.”

The race for the U.S. presidency is in full swing on both the Republican and Democratic Party sides. On the Republican side is a host of would-be candidates who seem to do all in their power to embarrass themselves with their rhetoric, policy stances, and pathetic appeals to be considered “the one” by the voters in their party.

On the Democratic side is a power lusting, lying and manipulating “affirmative action” candidate who is ready to ride to the White House as a “women,” and who “deserves it” after enduring eight years as the First Lady with her philandering husband. While her opponent is a “socialism with a human face” dreamer who lives in a government policy la-la-land.

Nowhere in any of the exchanges in the so-called “debates” are the most fundamental and essential questions ever asked: What do you understand to be the meaning of “freedom” in the American political tradition? What are the legitimate functions and duties of the federal government under the Constitution? Where do you think the scope and size of the federal government might be reduced? What is the constitutional role of government in foreign affairs?

These questions are neither asked nor answered because in present-day America there are few who even think in these terms. That in itself suggests just how statist in thinking, beliefs and desires most Americans really are.

This means that little can be hoped from this or any immediate other election in terms of winning liberty.

That requires friends of freedom to continue to take the principled and consistent long-run view to work to change the climate of opinion sufficiently that a day may come when the issues of the day do revolve around the question of what is liberty and how it might be protected and expanded?